Just Like Being There

I used to think I was the only one-- having police-related dreams after 13 years on the job. But, I still do. A lot of us do. It says a lot about our psyche but not our ability as officers as we live through a variety of scenarios when we close our eyes for the night. The dreams I have usually involve dealing with a situation by excessive means or, on the other extreme, not enough force. The other popular theme is equipment malfunction. The former are not secret desires, and the latter are not necessarily secret fears. But when so much is riding on how we deal with people as to how the outcome of encounter will play out and how our equipment performs which can make the difference between life and death for us or someone else, these issues will certainly try to come to light in our tangled thoughts during sleep. It's scary to me when I wake up and realize I beat the crap out of someone while trying to arrest them or shot them six times for not obeying a lawful order. But, scarier still, is when, in the dream, I have to legitimately take care of business and my gun jams, or the bullets just go "poof" and fall out the end of the gun. The biggest cop dream cliche of them all. These dreams do serve a function, however, as I can take the feelings I experience and things I observe (at least from the dreams that make any kind of sense) and apply them to real world situations. My mind has believed I've already lived through a particular situation, and I can better plan what to do next if, and when, it ever happens again. The Law Enforcement Community has a tool to assist officers as well in dealing with high stress, dynamic situations. Its called Realistic Training. One can hear all about all-out fights and shoot-outs any number of times in a classroom setting, but there's no substitute for experience. And, obviously, the experience of a shoot-out between an officer and a suspect doesn't happen to everyone, especially with any degree of frequency so as to be beneficial to the officer as he learns from past mistakes to make the next encounter that much more favorable. In this profession, we don't have the luxury of making mistakes when it really counts. So, it all comes down to training. There's an old adage, "Train like you fight. Fight like you train." When it hits the fan, an officer's mind will go on auto-pilot and use "muscle memory" to accomplish his objective, which in these cases, is to survive and put the other guy down. If you have a memory of positively conquering a particular scenario, your brain will talk you through it the next time instead of wasting time sifting through choices, wondering "What do we do now?"

Our department uses an excellent product of Realistic Training called Simunitions. The guns we use are real Glock handguns specially outfitted with a blue barrel and only able to accept magazines carrying the unique Simunition round, which consist of a waxy red or blue bullet tip. It's all carefully supervised as we make the transition from live rounds to the non-penetrating, yet fully shootable, ammunition and get ready for our training event. One of the mandatory training sessions we have involves proper approaches to vehicles on traffic stops. In the morning, we analyze the theories and diagrams in the Academy classroom then apply the techniques that afternoon out on the large concrete lot in our outdoor firing range. Several unmarked city vehicles and older, abused patrol cars are lined up beyond us as we outfit ourselves with facemasks and exterior groin protectors. It looks like a glorified Paintball expedition-- the blue team against our, as of yet, unseen adversaries. We break into about four groups of four plus an instructor and head out to one of the cruisers. Each station will simulate a traffic stop where anything, or nothing, can happen, giving us the opportunity to apply the techniques we learned. We'll see if we can, in fact, control the situation on a high or unknown risk traffic stop. And, if it goes south, then we have the proper training to act accordingly. It's B.C. (before contacts) for me, and I'm wearing glasses. However, the wrap around face shield I don, doesn't accommodate glasses. While I'm not blind by any means and have department acceptable uncorrected vision, I'm still uneasy at how blurry things are. The first incident of Murphy's Law presents itself. I can use this to my advantage though, as I realize I may face a situation someday where my glasses are knocked off or broken and will have no choice but to work through it. I pull the "suspect vehicle" over in the limited space we have, careful to have enough space between the two cars and a proper bladed position with the cruiser. I see one person in the car behind the driver's seat. But, I'm prepared for anything. I know how these instructors can be, so I'm expecting people hiding in the backseat or the trunk to pop open with 2 or 3 others jumping out. I do everything right as I call in my stop to the dispatcher and look for traffic upon exiting my door. I make an approach as close to the surface of the other car as possible. We are taught that it's more difficult for a driver to turn completely around and shoot directly behind them from outside the driver's window. But before I even get up to the car, the driver exits the vehicle and walks toward me. I'm stunned by what I see. Part of me realizes this is a training exercise, and what is before me is part of that. But the part of me that needs to benefit from this experience takes everything in as authentic as possible. The man is wearing full zip-up coveralls, like Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. Plus, he has the Simunitions face mask on for his own protection, but the effect is stunning. I stop and order him to stop as well. I don't need the distance between us diminishing now that control of the stop is an issue. One of the topics of this training addresses contacting violators outside of their vehicle. It can sometimes be better if an officer conducts business at the side of the vehicles, but usually at the direction and under the control of the officer, not the suspect. I don't have time to even consider this as the suspect keeps walking toward me and suddenly points a gun right at me. There's no time and no need to tell him to drop it. I draw my weapon and fire multiple shots at him from a distance of about 30 feet as I move to the right, between our two vehicles. He keeps approaching. I can't let myself be surprised that he didn't go down. Perhaps my shots didn't hit him. Or, as I think in terms of a real life situation, maybe he's wearing body armor or he's pumped so full of adrenaline or drugs that he's going on auto-pilot. I'm on auto-pilot now, that's for sure. I'm retreating, walking, if not jogging, backwards in order to get behind cover and re-engage. I haven't fired my second volley of shots yet as the second incident of Murphy's Law takes place. Suddenly I'm down on the ground. It's not a result of being shot. I couldn't tell if I had been shot at that point or not with everything happening so quickly. I had lost my footing on the spent casings of my shots as they acted like marbles beneath my feet. I'm on my back now and look up at the looming figure approaching me. I fire the rest of my rounds at him from no more than 5 feet away, seeing the blue flecks of wax bounce off his chest. He goes down and the exercise is over. I'm uninjured, except for the red flecks I see later on my arm and side. Survivable. Lesson learned-- expect the unexpected. I didn't even have the opportunity at that particular station to apply the newly learned knowledge, just reinforced principles from my time at the range during the Academy. Keep fighting, no matter what. What a rush. Like bungee jumping. I'm ready to go again.

My next entry will address another Realistic Training scenario involving Simunitions-- the very intense situation involving Active Shooter(s) (e.g. Columbine High School) and our redefined and immediate necessary response. Stay tuned!